AMC Global Media Inc. Q3 FY2020 Earnings Call

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the AMC Networks Third Quarter Conference Call. My name is Charles and I will be your conference operator today. As a reminder, all lines will be placed on mute to prevent any background noise. I will now hand over the call to our host for today, Mr. Seth Zaslow. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to the AMC Networks third quarter 2020 earnings conference call. Joining us this morning are members of our executive team, Josh Sapan, President and Chief Executive Officer; Ed Carroll, Chief Operating Officer; and Donna Coleman, Interim Chief Financial Officer. Following a discussion of the Company's third quarter 2020 results, we will open the call for questions. If you don't have a copy of today's earnings release, it is available on our website at amcnetworks.com. Please take note of the following: today's discussion may contain statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ. Please refer to the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of risks and uncertainties. The Company disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking statements that may be discussed during this call. Further, we will discuss non-GAAP financial information. We believe the presentation of non-GAAP results provides you with useful supplemental information concerning the Company's ongoing operations and is appropriate in your evaluation of the Company's performance. For further details, please refer to the press release and related footnotes for GAAP information and a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP information, which we'll refer to on this call. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Josh.

Good morning and thank you for joining us. I'll take a few minutes to touch on several of our operational highlights before turning the call over to our Interim CFO, Donna Coleman. I've known Donna for many years through her work at Madison Square Garden and Cablevision, and we feel very fortunate to have her with us and benefit from her considerable wisdom and expertise until we name a permanent CFO. AMC Networks delivered solid results in the third quarter with better than expected performance against several key metrics. We continued to maintain a strong financial profile and increase our financial flexibility with a solid balance sheet, very good liquidity, and healthy levels of free cash flow. Our financial flexibility allowed us to recently complete a modified Dutch auction tender offer, which took a significant number of shares out of the market at a very attractive price, something that Donna will provide more detail on in her remarks. We continued to make very good progress. In many respects, we are accelerating around the four key priorities we've outlined on prior calls. They are, one, expanding distribution and growing subscribers for our subscription video on demand services. Two, growing our digital ad revenue business. Three, increasing content ownership and optimizing our content franchises. And four, maintaining the high value of our linear networks. Our successful execution in these areas is powering our ability to begin to fundamentally reconstitute the revenue mix of our company, most notably with increasing revenue from our subscription streaming services becoming our fastest areas of growth. I'll touch briefly on these areas, starting with SVOD. Our SVOD business continues to outperform our expectations with AMC Networks fast becoming the global leader in subscription video on demand services for targeted audiences. To recap, this business consists of four targeted SVOD services: Acorn TV, Shudder, Sundance Now, and UMC, which serve defined audiences with curated programming. Our subscribers purchase these services as a complement to, not a replacement for, the larger general entertainment offerings that AMC serves to every member of the household. We also have a new subscription bundled offering called AMC+, which is available on Comcast, Dish, and Sling, and it just launched a few weeks ago on Apple TV and Amazon’s Prime Video. AMC+ has ad-free programming from our entertainment networks like AMC and BBC America. It also includes Shudder, Sundance Now, our indie film-centric SVOD offering called IFC Films Unlimited, as well as select library shows such as all seven seasons of Mad Men. All of these services are performing very well for us. We're seeing very positive growth rates, and we have exceeded our earlier stated targets across several metrics. On our last call, we told you that these services would end the year at the higher end of the 3.5 million to 4 million subscriber range. We now expect to end the year with over 4 million subscribers. This is a goal that we previously didn't anticipate reaching until the end of 2022. So we are fully two years ahead of plan and far exceeding our earlier expectations. With the addition of the AMC+ offering I just described, in terms of total subscribers across our company for SVOD, we now expect to end the year in the 5 million to 5.5 million total subscriber range, more than doubling our SVOD subscribers in just one year. In terms of revenue, in 2020, our streaming business will generate approximately $200 million in revenue. That represents year-over-year growth of roughly 100%. In just 12 months, we have also doubled the amount of revenue for our company coming from the streaming business. We think it's important to underscore that for a company of our size, the impact of 5 million subscribers today and 10 million, 15 million or 20 million subscribers in the future is very significant in terms of transforming the composition of our top-line revenues. As streaming continues to be a powerful force shaping TV today, we believe our offerings will continue to appeal to consumers looking to go deeper in the content categories that they love and identify with. Moving on to advertising, we are pleased with our performance in terms of the upfront, and we've set a solid foundation for the fourth quarter and going into 2021. We're in the middle of a calendar upfront now, and the marketplace has greater momentum. Pricing is healthy, and our fourth quarter programming slate is strong, inclusive of AMC's Annual Halloween theme programming event called FearFest, as well as our show Fear the Walking Dead, and the newest season in The Walking Dead Universe called The Walking Dead: World Beyond, and our annual Best Christmas Ever programming event. Our advertising revenue numbers for the third quarter on a relative basis are strong. We continue to benefit from the unique position we hold in the basic cable landscape with four of the top five dramas on basic cable in 2020 in key demos. We are the only premium diversified portfolio that consistently delivers high-quality dramas in a deeply engaging ad-supported environment. Our high concentration of hard-to-reach audiences is very attractive to advertisers and importantly is not accessible on large streaming platforms that are ad-free. A continuing area of focus for us is to leverage our award-winning programming through partnerships that offer viewers a new way to consume our content and help our advertising partners capitalize on their shift to streaming. We have successfully debuted ad-supported streaming channels on Pluto and Sling and recently added Amazon’s IMDb as an ad-supported streaming partner. These are in addition to recent fan-centric initiatives we're dealing with Reddit and Twitch, all part of our effort to create multiple ways for advertising clients to reach their audiences on all platforms via the passionate fan bases we have for our content, particularly around our key content franchises. These ad partnerships and ad distribution partnerships have yielded promising revenue results that are adding to our overall digital ad inventory scale in a manner that's becoming increasingly meaningful. We have more ad-supported platforms launching in the coming months, and we look forward to continued growth in this area in 2021 and beyond. Moving on to distribution, in the quarter, we reached a long-term carriage agreement with our partners at AT&T DirecTV. Our new comprehensive multi-platform partnership includes extended distribution for our linear channels and new distribution for our SVOD services, including AMC+ and our targeted SVOD offerings. With AT&T DirecTV, we've now completed multi-year renewals with three of the top four traditional distributors over the last 18 months. These are in addition to our recently expanded agreements with Amazon and Apple TV, which now carry AMC+ in addition to our standalone targeted SVOD services. These distribution agreements not only reflect the power of our strong content, but also a significant shift in our relationships with these value distributors. We're expanding our partnerships with them to include multiple products, our linear channels as well as our growing SVOD services and bundles now including AMC+. We think that we are particularly well-suited to bring our content to bear in service of MVPDs evolving needs as they expand their businesses to capture opportunities, not only in traditional bundled linear video but also to the growing broadband-only subscribers. In terms of content, AMC is home to four of the top six dramas on cable in 2020 to-date in two key demos, adults 25-54 and adults 18-49. The expanding Walking Dead Universe continues to be very popular with viewers. Last month, Fear the Walking Dead returned for a sixth season. The show is creatively better than ever and ranked as the number four cable drama for the year among adults 18-49. The newest series in the franchise, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, ranks as the number one freshman cable drama of the year in both key demos and through its first three episodes. It’s also performing well for us on our AMC channel overseas, particularly in Latin America. We recently announced that The Walking Dead will come to a close in late 2022. We are planning an expanded two-year season with 24 episodes, marking the 11th and final season of this flagship series. Its conclusion will be followed by another new series focused on the very popular Daryl and Carol characters. Fans are already expressing their enthusiasm for that new chapter in The Walking Dead Universe. We're also developing an anthology series called Tales of The Walking Dead that will offer great flexibility in the stories within this universe. All of this activity is led by Scott Gimple, our Chief Content Officer of The Walking Dead Universe. We are quite excited about all of it. I talked about our new AMC+ offering at the beginning of these remarks. To give you a sense of how viewers are engaging with AMC+, in the first two weeks that the service has been available on Apple TV and Amazon, the most viewed series and growth drivers are The Walking Dead Season 10, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, premieres of two new AMC series called Gangs of London and The Salisbury Poisonings, as well as from our Shudder service. Those two acclaimed dramas, Gangs of London and The Salisbury Poisonings, were AMC+ exclusives at launch, and won't appear on our linear network until early next year. The broad availability of AMC+ allowed us to make content from The Walking Dead Universe available on AMC+ several days ahead of its linear premiere. So while it's still early days, AMC+ is becoming a powerful platform to reach fans of our content, allowing us to increasingly capitalize on the strength and interest of our original programming, as well as the breadth of our growing library of content. On the production front, I'm pleased to say that we are resuming production activity on a number of our shows safely, in accordance with local health and safety guidelines and in cooperation with all of the relevant unions and guilds. We are currently in production on new episodes of The Walking Dead at our studio in Georgia, Fear the Walking Dead in Texas, and season one of a new series called Kevin Can F*** Himself that is shooting in Boston. Finally, turning to international, we continue to expand the availability of our SVOD services into overseas markets with Shudder now available in Australia and New Zealand and Acorn TV recently launched in Portugal, expanding its European footprint. In Spain, we've leveraged our strong relationship with our long-term distribution partners at the leading Spanish Pay TV operator Movistar+ and we are co-producing a major mini series called La Fortuna with them, starring Oscar-winning actor Stanley Tucci. To close out, the third quarter demonstrated the strength of our increasingly diversifying business. We continue to benefit from the positive momentum across those strategic initiatives, particularly the progress we're making executing on our subscription streaming business. With that, I'll turn the call over to Donna Coleman for more details on our financial results. Thank you.

Thank you and good morning. For the third quarter, total company revenue was $654 million. Total company AOI was $185 million. Both revenue and AOI were ahead of our expectations this quarter, primarily due to favorable top line performance, particularly at our international and other segments. With respect to the performance of our operating segments, at the National Networks, revenue was $462 million and AOI was $159 million. Advertising revenue in the quarter declined 16% to $164 million. As expected, we saw an improvement in the overall health of the advertising market in the third quarter compared to the second quarter. However, our advertising performance was impacted by the timing of our originals, particularly the airing of Fear the Walking Dead, which aired in the third quarter of 2019 but was moved to the fourth quarter of this year, as well as the pandemic and lower delivery. With respect to distribution, as anticipated, distribution revenues decreased in the quarter. The main driver of the decline was the content licensing component of distribution revenues. This line item declined due mainly to the timing of the licensing of our scripted original programs in various windows. Notably, results in the prior year period reflect the SVOD availability of The Walking Dead as well as the international distribution of Fear the Walking Dead and The Terror. As for subscription revenues, consistent with our expectations, subscription revenues were down in the low double digits compared to the prior year period. We continue to see moderation mainly due to declines in total Pay TV subscribers. As Josh discussed, we believe the strength of our content and our attractive wholesale pricing continues to make us a valuable service for our distribution partners. Moving to expenses, total expenses decreased by $48 million or 14% versus the prior year period. Technical and operating expenses decreased 15% to $223 million. The variance primarily related to the suspension of production activities and subsequent delays in the creation and availability of content, which resulted in a reduction in programming amortization. In the quarter, we recorded $20 million in charges related to the write-down of various programming assets. This compares to write-downs of $1 million in the third quarter of 2019. SG&A expenses were $90 million in the third quarter, a decrease of 11% versus the prior year period. The variance primarily related to lower marketing and other administrative costs. Moving now to the international and other segments, international and other revenues were $199 million. As I mentioned, revenue was higher than expected. Levity was the main driver. While the comedy venues remained closed, production activity resumed sooner than we had expected. Advertising at our international networks also improved more than we anticipated on a sequential basis. Looking at our year-over-year results, international and other revenue increased 9% versus the prior year. As Josh discussed, we've benefited from strong growth from our targeted SVOD services primarily due to the increase in subscribers. AOI was $28 million, an increase of $14 million versus the prior year. The increase was primarily attributable to strong growth at our targeted SVOD services, partially offset by a decrease at our international networks. Moving to EPS, for the third quarter, EPS on a GAAP basis was $1.17 compared to $2.07 in the prior year period. On an adjusted basis, EPS was $1.32 compared to $2.33 in the prior year. The year-over-year variance in both GAAP and adjusted EPS primarily reflected the decrease in AOI as well as an increase in the effective tax rate, partially offset by favorable variances in miscellaneous net and a reduction in outstanding shares as a result of our stock repurchase program. The increase in the effective tax rate was due to an increase in a cap valuation in the current period against a discrete benefit in the prior year related to investment tax credits and the reorganization of foreign IP. The favorable variance in miscellaneous net reflected unrealized gains on equity investments. In terms of free cash flow, the company had a strong quarter and continues to deliver very healthy amounts of cash. We generated $203 million in free cash flow for the three months ended September 2020, resulting in a nine-month total of $595 million in free cash. Through nine months, cash interest was $92 million. Tax payments were $60 million. Capital expenditures were $35 million and distributions to noncontrolling interests were $14 million. Working capital also improved significantly year-over-year, primarily due to delays in production spending and the timing of collections related to receivables from the sale of advertising and content. Turning to the balance sheet, our financial profile remains strong and we continue to take steps to ensure that we're well-positioned to weather the impact of the pandemic on our company. Our balance sheet and strong free cash flow have allowed us to opportunistically allocate capital. In mid-September, we launched a Dutch auction tender offer. As a result of the tender, which we completed in mid-October, we repurchased 10.8 million shares for $251 million. We were quite pleased with this transaction, as it allowed us to repurchase a significant amount of our stock. Subsequent to the completion of the tender, our balance sheet remains strong, and we continue to have significant financial flexibility. In terms of capital allocation, the four key tenets of our capital allocation policy remain unchanged. They are, first, invest organically in our core business and new businesses in projects that produce attractive returns for our shareholders. As Josh discussed, our targeted SVOD services have been performing quite well, and we're looking to lean into this area to improve our long-term positioning. Our second tenet is to maintain leverage that is appropriate for the business outlook. As of September 30, AMC Networks had net debt and finance leases of $1.9 billion. Our leverage ratio based on LTM AOI of $833 million was 2.2 times. Adjusting for the tender offer that I mentioned, our leverage at September 30 would have been 2.5 times. Despite the impact of the pandemic on our business, we do not foresee any issues with our covenants or our ability to service our debt and continue to have significant liquidity. Third, make disciplined and opportunistic acquisitions to advance our strategy. Fourth, return capital to shareholders. Year-to-date, the company has repurchased 14.8 million shares for $354 million. As of last Friday, we had $135 million available under our existing authorization program. We will continue to be opportunistic with the pacing of our repurchase activity, and you should expect it to vary quarter-to-quarter. Looking ahead, as we previously discussed, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operations remains quite fluid, making it unusually challenging for management to estimate future performance. As a result, the focus of our prospective comments will be on the fourth quarter. We anticipate continued quarterly variability due to both the pandemic and the specific timing of our investments in content and the airing of our shows. Regarding revenue at the National Networks in terms of advertising, while the advertising market continues to improve sequentially, year-over-year results in the fourth quarter are expected to be impacted by the timing of our original programming lineup, including a delay in the airing of The Walking Dead. We expect that the year-over-year decrease in fourth quarter advertising revenue will be relatively consistent with the percentage we reported year-over-year in the third quarter. As for distribution revenue at the National Networks, we anticipate seeing significant sequential improvement in our year-over-year results in the fourth quarter, compared to what we saw in the third quarter. As for content licensing revenue, our performance will be impacted by the timing of availability and monetization of content and ancillary windows. For instance, in the fourth quarter, we expect to recognize revenue from the international distribution of World Beyond and Fear the Walking Dead. In terms of subscription revenue, we expect the decrease in the fourth quarter to be relatively consistent with the percentage we recorded year-over-year in the third quarter, as macro trends in Pay TV subscribers continue to be the main driver of our performance. At our international and other segments, we expect revenues to be down modestly on a percent basis year-over-year. We anticipate continued growth in our streaming services will be offset by declines at Levity as the comedy venues remain closed, and our international networks due to the adverse impact on advertising revenues related to the pandemic. As for expenses, we expect total company expenses to increase modestly on a percent basis year-over-year. At the National Networks, expenses are expected to be relatively flat year-over-year, due primarily to the timing of airing our originals. We expect programming amortization to reflect the airing of originals, such as Fear the Walking Dead, World Beyond, and Soulmates. At our International and Other segments, we expect increased investment in programming and marketing to drive subscriber gains for our growing SVOD services. In terms of free cash flow, our production activity has picked up significantly. Assuming no significant interruptions in that activity as a result of the pandemic, we don't expect to generate meaningful cash flow in the fourth quarter. Nonetheless, we remain pleased with the free cash flow characteristics of our business and expect to end 2020 at levels well in excess of 2019 free cash flow. In conclusion, overall, we feel confident about our ability to continue to weather the pandemic, given our strong balance sheet and our healthy free cash flow. Our focus remains on positioning the business to navigate this uncertain period, while also taking advantage of opportunities to further our long-term strategic initiatives and positioning. With that, we would like to move to the question-and-answer portion of our call. Operator, please open the call to questions.

Thank you. And our first question comes from the line of Michael Nathanson. Your line is open.

Thanks. Hey Josh, I have a question for you. Can you talk a bit about those four targeted services, maybe the need to balance of what is bringing in those subscribers? Is there enough healthy original programming, is it library, a little bit about churn? So I'm just trying to get a picture of how much you need to invest in originals, keep driving this and what the churn dynamics look like? Thanks so much.

Sure, Michael. I think the answer is a little bit different for each one, because they have such discrete targeted audiences. I will share that the largest of them Acorn, which is British-oriented, has a vast and deep library and a wide range of material that we can license. At the same time, Acorn has been a vigorous co-producer of material in the UK and worldwide. So Acorn is a combination of significant library and co-productions. Acorn has among the lowest churn of any subscription service in America, that includes the biggest part of this. A function of that is the dedication and affinity that people feel with the material; it's used somewhat by an older demographic. And it has a significant part of the steady stream availability of material that gives it this very low churn. So it has extraordinarily attractive characteristics in terms of churn and therefore lifetime value. Shudder is interesting because we have also a library of good movies, but we've been able to produce and co-produce a few different areas and your illustrative and worth the moment. First, with our own AMC service, or regular linear business, we co-produced a series called Creepshow, which in that demo and on that service is sort of a monster hit. And it’s illustrative; we did a movie during the pandemic called Host, which was done completely remotely. It was lauded in those circles. And it was a pandemic movie that was a horror movie, and it electrified the Shudder audience. Shudder has slightly higher churn, but the dollar threshold for producing material against the target audience is not high, a movie like Host is rather inexpensive and they enjoyed it very well. The net of this is that as compared to the general SVODs, the dollar requirement is in a different league. It's nothing like you see and read about Netflix, et cetera, spending on a per hour basis. It’s actually a different universe and has different sets of economics that are very attractive and much lower. I believe that we have advanced and refined our capability in how to find, target, and retain those audiences, as proven by the numbers. While I wouldn't say we're the worldwide leader in targeted SVODs, we may, in fact, be the worldwide leader in these targeted SVODs.

Okay. Thanks, Josh.

Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Steven Cahall. Your line is open.

Thanks. Two from me. Maybe first just tracking your distribution revenue; it does seem like that may be in addition to sub declines there's a little bit of pricing pressure. And so just wondering if it's logical for us to conclude that as you're renewing with MVPDs, you're launching these digital bundles, is there a bit of price pressure that’s working into your networks as you make that pivot? That’s the first one. And then the second one, I was just wondering about the life of series deal with Netflix for The Walking Dead. As you start to think about delivering the final seasons of The Walking Dead, how do you think about that deal? And we've seen some legacy libraries like Mad Men recently get repriced as they've come available. So, does the end of that show sort of reopen that deal with Netflix? And if it does, do you feel like that's more upside or downside to your licensing revenue? Thank you.

So I'll answer the first part of it; the first question and the first part, the second one, I'll ask Ed to participate. On the distribution side, there has been some pricing pressure downward. The rate of growth on MVPD renewals used to be in double digits, it's lowered now. The most significant factor affecting moderation in our distribution revenue includes subscriber declines, particularly in the satellite sector, which we're widely exposed to through AT&T and Dish. Each deal we've done is different. We are focused on a holistic relationship with our MVPD partners. Note that Comcast was a helpful architect in what was first called AMC Premiere, now AMC+. We are focused on what our world looks like over 12 and 24 months in aggregate. But we also feel that we have among the most valuable basic cable services, with four of the top six rated dramas. They are great for MVPDs. We are trying to both retain and grow standard video subscribers. The nicest thing for our company is that our cherished MVPD partners are embracing our linear offerings and our SVOD offerings and see us as a stable, high-quality, reliable integrated provider on both sides. To your second question, if I may, I'll first distinguish shows we own because we produce them and the others we license. For instance, Mad Men was licensed from Lionsgate. We own The Walking Dead. After shows complete their run on SVOD, if we licensed them to Netflix, they return to us as the studio. In essence, after a few years when we stop producing new episodes, all the rights revert back to us, and we'll have over 170 hours. We can decide whether to use them on our platforms or license them internationally. There are always new audiences aging into that demographic, so they'll always be people who want to see that show. We have the option to utilize The Walking Dead effectively on our platforms or in licensing.

Right, Steven. So several years after we stop making and delivering new episodes of The Walking Dead, all the rights revert back to us from Netflix. When we do stop making the show, we'll have additional contents to leverage internationally and domestically. The nature of a show like The Walking Dead is unique, as there will always be new viewers who want to see it.

Thanks, Ed.

Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Michael Morris. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning. Two topics for me. First, can you share your thoughts on pricing for the AMC+ service? So specifically, why do you have such a variance on – at least on a percentage basis between, say, a Comcast customer and an Apple or Amazon customer? And then also the $9 price point on Amazon Prime and Apple feels fairly high on a relative basis. So why is that the right price? And then secondly, as your revenue streams do increasingly diversify, how do you think about the long-term AOI margin compared to maybe what you've enjoyed on a pretty steady basis at the National Networks space segment in the kind of mid-to-high 30s range? How do you think about it for the company over the longer term? Thanks.

Sure. So I'll kick it off, Michael, and Ed may have something to add. I’ll start with the margin first, which is: the SVOD services we have, as I mentioned earlier in the Q&A, have unusual expense characteristics. The targeted services are a different species from an SVOD service that is striving to be in 50 million domestic homes and 200 million worldwide homes, and is looking to serve every member of a household. The scalability and leverage in our expense base relative to the number of subs is quite attractive. To wit, we’re run-rate profitable. But I wouldn't make a margin prediction for us 36 to 48 months out; I would expect a radically different top line of diversified revenue coming from multiple sources. The margin profile in aggregate of our company should be attractive over time, which will not be static and may have some fluctuations. As for your question on price, I'll turn it over to Ed, who will give additional details.

Hey, Michael, I'll just remind you we had established a price point in the market for Shudder, which was $5.99. That service has exceeded a million subscribers. We had a price point for Sundance Now at $6.99, and then we had AMC Premiere on Comcast at about $5. For AMC+, we did a fair amount of modeling and determined that $8.99 was the right introductory price point. We're finding that the combination of AMC content combined with our targeted SVODs hits a sweet spot.

Great. Thank you both.

Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Kutgun Maral. Your line is open.

Great, thanks for taking the questions. Two if I could. First, sticking with AMC+, you had previously sized the total addressable market for each of the four targeted services to be over $10 million in the U.S. alone, your updated SVOD subscriber targets today imply fairly encouraging adoption of AMC+ either through Xfinity, Dish, Sling, or now through Apple and Amazon. So how are you thinking about the longer term subscriber potential for AMC+? I assume the service accelerates your SVOD revenue expectations as well. Should we expect an update to your previous 2024 outlook? If not, I know you've talked about the attractive cost structure of your SVOD services overall. Does AMC+ shift the path or timeline to profitability? And I have a follow-up.

It's a good question. The answer to the market opportunity is substantially higher. When we discussed the targeted SVODs, we spoke to you about Acorn, Shudder, Sundance Now, and UMC. AMC+, I think Ed mentioned, is targeted but extremely focused. If you have four of the top rated shows recently, you are either in a dramatically higher market size opportunity. I can't dramatize it enough in terms of the growth potential. Regarding cost, we will find opportunities to invest, with degrees of discipline and organic efficiency to grow our offerings, and I believe we will also be able to increase our ability to retain viewers through our owned titles returning to us as potential must-see items.

That's very helpful. Thank you. And second, if I could just on the buyback, the tender offer was a very clear and impressive expression of the Board's confidence in the business. That said, there still appears to be plenty of dry powder, given the strong balance sheet, ample liquidity, and free cash flow generation. I appreciate that this would be a Board decision, but should investors expect buybacks will continue to remain elevated as shares remain range bound in the mid-to-lower $20 range?

Hi, it’s Donna. I think, as I outlined in our prepared remarks, we feel we have a very good balance to investing in the company, maintaining our leverage level, and returning capital to shareholders. So we will continue to be opportunistic in our decisions on buybacks. We have $135 million left in our existing authorization from the Board. As you pointed out, we're very optimistic about the future of the company and strategy laid out by Josh. We're quite pleased with how the Dutch auction worked out.

Thank you both.

Operator, we have time for one last question, please.

Thank you, sir. Next question comes from the line of Brett Feldman. Your line is open.

Thanks for squeezing me in. You've continued to make the point you're demonstrating with your performance that managing these targeted SVOD services is a real core competency of the company. And you've talked about this $10-plus million addressable market for the services you have. I would imagine that if you were to come up with a theoretical list of targeted SVOD services that could need different demos, it could be much more expensive than four services. Have you thought about trying to cultivate a fifth or a sixth service? I assume you get pitched ideas a lot, and you have plenty of financial resources available to you. I hope you could expand on how you think about diversifying that service portfolio over time. Thank you.

Sure. We started Shudder several years ago and Sundance Now on an R&D basis. We were happily able to acquire services like Acorn and UMC. To your question about expansion, we recently launched something called IFC Films Unlimited, which is a targeted Indie film service that has gained traction. We do have the capacity to study the market and understand different price points for potential services, and we will determine whether there are organic or M&A opportunities, having reached a level of competency in how to market these services efficiently. So the answer is, yes, we think there could be expansion opportunities, but we'll decide based on the right calls and the necessary ROI.

Great. Thanks for taking the question.

Thank you everyone for joining us on today's call. We apologize for the delay at the outset of the call, but we appreciate your interest in AMC Networks. Operator, you can now conclude the call.

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.